By Mike Fancher
Seattle Times editor-at-large

"It was really a hard down. It just went boom, down. I knew we probably had no chance."

That was 12:50 a.m. Friday, when all power was lost to the Seattle Times North Creek plant in Bothell. Frank Paiva, vice president for operations, sensed that his people might not be able to print any more newspapers. He was right. At that point, three of the plant's four presses had been struggling to print advance sections of the Friday Times and Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Those runs should have been done several hours before, but power lurches and surges had created havoc for the presses. A fourth press, which isn't used for the advance runs, had started to print the mainsheet of the Friday Times, but only 13,000 copies were off when the power crashed.

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The last time The Times didn't publish was 1953, during a strike. The P-I reported yesterday that the last time it didn't print was in 1936, also during a strike. This time the cause was the worst windstorm in more than a decade. It caused four deaths and left more than 1 million customers, including the North Creek plant, without power.

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Restarting the presses in Bothell was complicated for both mechanical and technical reasons. These modern behemoths are a combination of heavy metal and computer wizardry, and Paiva praised the know-how of the press operators who brought them back to life quickly and safely.

"There are tricks of the trade to get a press started. Stuff old pros know how to do," he said. In the end, The Times run was done at 3:59 a.m. and the P-I at 4:23.

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Paiva praised how well people came together. "One common trait is people always show up," he said. "I looked around to see who we were missing and everybody was here. It just amazing how people in the newspaper business — in every department — show up even when they have their own problems to deal with."

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Hat Tip to Emmett Jaime III